﻿[Prom the American Journal of Science and Arts, Vol. V, June, 1873.] 



Remarks on certain Errors in Mr. Jeffreys^ s Article on " The 



Mollusca of Europe compared with those of Eastern North 



America f by A. E. Verrill.* 



In the October number of tlie Annals and Magazine of Natu- 

 ral History, Mr. Jeffreys, published an article upon this interest- 

 ing subject, in which many important errors occur, due, no 

 doubt, to the fact that the distinguished author is much less 

 familiar with American than with European shells. But as the 

 dredgings in connexion with the investigations of our fisheries 

 by the U. S. Fish Commission were under my superintendence 

 during the two past seasons, and Mr. Jeffreys alludes to the 

 fact (though rather indefinitely) that he, by invitation of Pro- 

 fessor Baird, accompanied us on several dredging-excursions in 

 1871, it seems necessary that I should point out some of the 

 more important of these errors, lest it be supposed by some 

 that the same views are held by me. 



It is not my intention to discuss at this time the numerical 

 results presented by Mr. Jeffreys ; but I would remind the 

 readers of his article that the regions compared are in no respect 

 similar or parallel, and that it is scarcely fair to compare the 

 shells from the entire coast of Europe with those from about 

 200 miles of the coast of New England, where the marine 

 climate is for the most part more arctic than that of the extreme 

 north of Scotland — and, moreover, that the last edition of 

 Gould's "Invertebrata of Massachusetts" contains only a part of 

 the species added to our fauna since the first edition was pub- 

 lished in 1841, and very little of the great mass of facts in 

 regard to distribution, &c., which have been accumulated by 

 American naturalists during the last thirty years. Conse- 

 quently that work is far from being a good " standard of com- 

 parison." To make a just comparison, all the shells on our 

 coast, from Labrador to Florida, should be compared with those 

 of Europe. 



And without going into a long discussion of his peculiar 

 views on the geographical distribution of our shells, I would 



* From the Annals and Magazine of Nat. Hist., IV, vol. xi, p. 206. 



